Jesse Kline: Anti-marijuana arguments go up in smoke

January 1 was more than a New Year celebration for Coloradans who enjoy the occasional toke. It was the first day retailers could legally sell marijuana for recreational use. Despite the high tax rate, many lined up to be some of the first to purchase marijuana in a strip mall, rather than a dark alley.

Washington state, which also legalized marijuana in a 2012 vote, will allow legal sales later this year. Not to be outdone, the legislature in New Hampshire — the state with the motto “Live Free or Die” on its licence plates — is also set to vote on a legalization bill. Activists in Alaska are on track to get a ballot initiative before the voters in that state, as well.

We would appear to be witnessing the beginning of the end of marijuana prohibition. But perhaps the best part is that proponents of the status quo seem to have completely run out of steam.

Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus warns that pot should remain illegal because “the more widely available marijuana becomes, the more minors will use it.” Even though she admits that the next time she’s in Colorado, she’ll “check out some Bubba Kush.” And that she has done her “share of inhaling, though back in the age of bell-bottoms and polyester.” You know, back when pot was illegal and youngsters couldn’t get their hands on it.

Likewise, in the pages of the National Post, New York Times columnist David Brooks touts his stoner bona fides: “For a little while in my teenage years, my friends and I smoked marijuana.… I think those moments of uninhibited frolic deepened our friendships. But then we all sort of moved away from it.”

So Brooks had some fun, learned some valuable lessons and stopped doing drugs. No harm, no foul.

If he were a poor black kid from Washington, D.C. — a city where African Americans are eight times more likely to get arrested for marijuana possession than whites, despite using it at similar rates — things might have turned out much differently. Like millions before him, he could have gone to jail, lost his job and never had the chance to realize his potential. Indeed, despite having smoked pot (even though it was illegal) and grown up to be a successful columnist, Brooks is still an advocate of the status quo.

“Laws profoundly mould culture, so what sort of community do we want our laws to nurture?” he asks. “I’d say that in healthy societies government wants to subtly tip the scale to favour temperate, prudent, self-governing citizenship … government subtly encourages the highest pleasures, like enjoying the arts or being in nature, and discourages lesser pleasures, like being stoned.”

In this, Brooks is profoundly mistaken. Culture is not shaped from the top-down, but the bottom-up. Virtually every major legislative achievement — from civil rights to gay marriage — was precipitated by the people. The politicians had to be dragged kicking and screaming into modernity, and only did so once they realized the rest of society had already changed their minds. Drug reform is also being driven primarily by ballot initiatives, not governments.

The idea that allowing adults to freely decide what substances to put in their own bodies is somehow an endorsement of said substances is also completely false. People who don’t want to smoke marijuana are not going to start, just because it is available in stores.

If we see a drop in price, people who already consume marijuana will likely purchase more of it. It will also prevent millions of dollars from ending up in the pockets of gang members and other criminal organizations. Saying that legalization will lead to more people using the drug, however, is not supported by the facts.

Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001 and saw the number of people using them decline in the years that followed. The Netherlands has also allowed coffee shops to legally sell marijuana for decades and, according to the UN’s “World Drug Report,” a mere 5.4% of its population had smoked marijuana in the past year, compared to 12.6% in Canada and 24.1% in the U.S.

If these are the best arguments the prohibitionist crowd can muster, then it truly is time to dismantle our outdated marijuana laws.

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